We discussed an article where Saleh came out and talked about inflation and how inflation is on their radar screen now and this is from the Central Bank its NOT from an economist..directly from them and basically he reiterated they will do what they need to do to protect their currency from inflation because that is what there job is.....I think that was kinda a shot to really let everybody know in Parliament that inflation is creeping up....We have a housing problem...we have a goods problem...and THIS NEEDS TO BE SETTLED NOW.......you are passing tariff laws and you want to add to this....not going to let that happen.....WE ARE GOING TO TAKE CARE OF THIS....WE ARE GOING TO MOVE FORWARD

We also discussed that an economist is coming out who looks like he is a frontrunner for laying out whats going to happen in the deleting of the 3 zeroes...how the country needs to decrease its monetary supply...Its a great article to take a look at..IT JUST LAYS OUT ALL THE REASONS WHY THEY NEED TO RVdecrease their money supply, add value to it, to dedollarize the country..to make sure they get what they want...its not sexy...it doesn't talk about a rate but it does talk about them being able to make transactions easier for the banks ...make transactions easier for the people...get rid of these large notes that have very little value..get something that has value...add more value than a dollar into the hands of the people so that they can be confident and spend that ...This is all part of the training process going on..Inch by inch we've been watching this training process going on In our minds we might have thought it was going to be on the Large TV screens but it is a series of articles, people going out, getting with the students, series of getting to the people...Because remember the biggest problem they are going to have is the people being afraid of the money that comes out or afraid it wont have any value and they wont give up their dollar...THEY REALLY NEED TO GET THEM ON THEIR OWN MONETARY SYSTEM...they have to be able to go out and get a loaf a bread and get a dinar for that back...not a dollar...they have got to get rid of the two trading systems and have just one.....very important for the life blood of the CBI to make sure that they set the median of exchange for the country and everyone uses that median of exchangeLong long time ago before we had banks we used to take rocks and gold and we would go and we would sit there...we would make sure we bought whatever we did..we paid in gold nuggets for whatever we bought...well the banks came in and said well we want to sit there...we want to give you a median exchange...take your gold put it in our vaults and we are going to give you some paper that has the value of that gold and you can spend it and then when it is all gone you have to go find more and thats what the banks do...thats what they want to do and thats what the CBI wants to do here

We discussed the Gold production and how Turkey is coming in to help them with the Gold ProductionMost excitingly they want to help the bank handle gold transactions and put that in thereGold is a huge huge resource for this country and it is an underdeveloped situation for them right now to get that out of the ground and going and to have Turkey and others come in and put them into this position to go forward and to take advantage of that is ABSOLUTELY GREAT

We read an article about how difficult it is to cash a check in Iraq from Reuters....and then we read an article after that talking about how the Ministry of Education is going to have Smart cards, all kinds of credit cards and ATM machines and we discussed maybe we should send that article to the guy at Reuters after saying it was very difficult to cash a check and that the banking system just stinks in Iraq.....We have discussed over and over for months how advanced they really are...So be aware not everybody understands the Middle eastnot everyone has good reason to go and do their research to write good factual stories about it....they just put out articles about it on what they either think of believeIts lazy reporting from the side of the West where you have people there that are excited about their country and want to get some things outYou have to take it with a grain of salt with whatever you read in the papers but it seems we are alot farther along than everybody else would like everyone else to think

We learned the BUDGET WAS RATIFIED by President Talabani before he got on a plane to come to AmericaWe've read that the Council of ministers have COMPLETED ITS RULES OF PROCEDURES to move forward between the political blocs... thats kinda the ruling party of all three blocsand there were procedures that needed to be laid down by Erbil in order for them to get things done...we've heard alot talk about them getting things done according to the constitutionI think the constitution ends up giving a little more power to Talabani and also lets that Power Sharing Erbil Agreement that they voted on actually be IMPLEMENTED and I think we are starting to see that..we are starting to see a change in the political way things are getting done over there

We read about Parliament going into SECRET SESSION and they are voting on things that they didn't let anyone know what they voted onand then we read about the meeting with the WORLD BANK, IMF & IRAQ ...giving a report to the IMF about whats going on in their country behind closed doors for hours....Then we discussed about the WTO and Iraq and possibly being a GOOD PARTNER TO BE IN THE WTO because of whats going on and how much there is going to be business in that country to bring alot of people over...ALL GREAT INFORMATION!!

There is alot going on out there...SO MUCH MOVING FORWARD....We've seen the political situation ease up....We've got the convention coming up and that seems to be less and less of a problem and we have always said that they are handling alot of things in these pre-meetings with the Conventions and it looks like alot is getting done.....looks like what we may see is a couple of things that are just primarily for political purposes so that when they do have that convention they will announce everything..come out as their government getting ready to head to the Arab Summit at the end of the monthDon't get caught up in thinking that an RV has to happen in order for them to do any of these thingsThey can do all of these things and not have an RV happenThe RV is an independent event of any other event that is going onhowever having those things in hand make them look much better with their trading partners when they come in.....seems to be a pressure to get alot of these things done and get them over the humpTHE DATES ARE STARTING TO SHRINK IN ON THEM ON WHEN THEY CAN GET THESE THINGS DONE

I dont know when that RV is going to take place....I have no idea what the date is or the rate is but on my checklist of things that we are looking for to get done to check off ....that checklist is getting smaller...and smaller..and smallerso that GIVES SHABIBI PLENTY OF WINDOWS OF OPPORTUNITY TO START TO DO WHAT HE WANTS TO DOAND DECIDE WHEN HE WANTS TO ADD VALUEWe've often said he wants to see a stable government and that situation to get cleaned up and it certainly looks like it is getting cleaned up fairly well as we are starting to see it in the articles as they are coming out

As we discussed the Tax & Tariff Law was enacted and June 30 is the day Tax and tariff law starts taxing the citizens...thats speaks volumes right thereRemember we read May was when they hoped to be out of Chapter 7 because thats how long we are going to gauarantee their funds for..See how that timeline is moving forward and forward......drawing us a pictureUnless we are really wrong about what we are seeing I certainly understand you can't pass tariffs when you have no value to your money...it just makes no economic sense whatsoever.......it kills the economy....forget about anything else .....Its like sand with water coming in and your trying to dig a ditch when that happensand we all know Shabibi is alot smarter than that

There you have it.....The Straight Talk Express with Straight Talking Mike....Another night of Great Positive News